History

Population

Contents

The country was virtually unexplored by people from the civilized lands as it was incredibly difficult to get to. It was surrounded by rugged mountains and to the northwest were the jungles of Chult.[2]

To Faerûn at large, Samarach was a nigh-mythical kingdom of the south.[3]Tashalarans described Samarachians as cowards who at night shut themselves in behind the walls of their cities. They apparently hid the passes through the mountains and the roads to their cities behind illusions.[2] The country was created by the Nimbralese, which would certainly explain their propensity for illusions.[1]

As across much of the South, monkey spiders were popular in Samarach as companions, familiars, and pets, which led to grubby illicit auctions of them in back alleys and some marketplaces. For the intelligent apes, these constituted slave auctions, and some escaped their masters. Rumors claimed that, in Samarach and throughout the South, these escaped monkey spiders had developed an underworld network ruled by inch-high tyrants. Supposedly, monkey spider spies eavesdropped on every important meeting, communicating what they learned to the monkey spider kings, who then acted through sympathetic humans and demihumans to influence the affairs of nations.[4]

Samarach is the launching point for the game Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir. The country is portrayed as a nation of highly paranoid people, petrified of yuan-ti, where if it even suspected that contact has been had with snakes, it is almost as good as a death sentence. Outsiders are shunned, needing special permission to even set foot in the foreign quarter of the city of Samargol, and the guard watches them from afar using divination magic to ensure they do not act against the country. The Samarachan army frequently exercises the right to arrest anyone, especially foreigners, for contact with yuan-ti (often orders from nobles who want someone out of their way). Unbeknownst to the authorities, however, there exists a logging camp manned by Lantanesegnomes and an Underdark black market; how the gnomes manage this with Samarach's xenophobia and propensity towards divination is not explained, however the mind flayers imply that a number of corrupt nobles who regularly use their wares protect them from being discovered by the wrong people.